mphant zeal on behalf of that Primeval Mystery, to which I had had
so great a devotion from my youth, I recognized the movement of my
Spiritual Mother. "Incessu patuit Dea." The self-conquest of her
Ascetics, the patience of her Martyrs, the irresistible determination of
her Bishops, the joyous swing of her advance, both exalted and abashed
me. I said to myself, "Look on this picture and on that;" I felt
affection for my own Church, but not tenderness; I felt dismay at her
prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that
if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of the victory
in the event. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue
her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination; still
I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the
Established Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic,
set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and
the organ. She was nothing, unless she was this. She must be dealt with
strongly, or she would be lost. There was need of a second reformation.

At this time I was disengaged from College duties, and my health had
suffered from the labour involved in the composition of my Volume. It
was ready for the Press in July, 1832, though not published till the end
of 1833. I was easily persuaded to join Hurrell Froude and his Father,
who were going to the south of Europe for the health of the former.

We set out in December, 1832. It was during this expedition that my
Verses which are in the Lyra Apostolica were written;--a few indeed
before it, but not more than one or two of them after it. Exchanging, as
I was, definite Tutorial work, and the literary quiet and pleasant
friendships of the last six years, for foreign countries and an unknown
future, I naturally was led to think that some inward changes, as well
as some larger course of action, were coming upon me. At Whitchurch,
while waiting for the down mail to Falmouth, I wrote the verses about my
Guardian Angel, which begin with these words: "Are these the tracks of
some unearthly Friend?" and which go on to speak of "the vision" which
haunted me:--that vision is more or less brought out in the whole series
of these compositions.

I went to various coasts of the Mediterranean; parted with my friends at
Rome; went down for the second time to Sicily without companion, at the
end of April; and got back to England by Pale